Please check the FAQ section if you have
any questions before contacting us.

Submission Closed

Application for the 2017 summer program was closed.

Background

IIJ Innovation Institute (IIJ-II) Research Laboratory conducts
advanced research and technology development on the Internet. The
researchers, strongly collaborating with the WIDE Project, were long
involved in IPv6 standardization and its BSD stack implementation
(KAME project), published well known national Internet traffic
measurements and analysis for the last years (MAWI project),
endeavored to establish a securer interdomain routing protocol, and to
experiment with ecological data centers as well as cloud services.

We are looking for motivated interns who can work with us to
accelerate our projects by researching problems, proposing
solutions, implementing tools, making various simulations, and so
on. By joining us, you can get high quality experience in our
research laboratory, can communiate with forefront researchers, have
time to discuss with other qualified interns, which will be all benefit
to your future carrier plan.

Compensation and Working Environment

IIJ-II will pay its interns a competitive wage and provide a
comfortable research environment with abundant opportunities to gain
Internet focused R&D experience.

Wage: 250,000JPY/Month (social security expenses and taxes will be subtracted depending on your work contracts)

Travel expense is provided

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Period: 2 months (negotiable depending on the schedule of your Univ.)

Accommodation is provided if it is difficult to commute

Insurance: Workers' accident compensation insurance (Travel and off-time accident insurance are not covered, we strongly suggest you to prepare them by yourself)

Administrative Details

Candidates should be university students (university
registration holding for the duration of the internship) with a
strong motivation toward research. See project details for the
technical expertise required for a specific project.

Available Projects

Traffic Measurement and Data Analysis

Objectives

It is essential for IIJ to understand recent trends in customer
traffic.

We will provide an internship student an opportunity to work on a
small measurement project, possibly using real-world datasets from
IIJ's services, in order to provide practical feedback to IIJ's
services.

Possible topics are:

development of traffic visualization tools
(e.g., for multi-dimensional traffic time-series or for video
streaming quality)

development of algorithms to provide compact summary information of
large-scale traffic data

development of tools to collect and analyze behaviors of HTTP video
streaming clients (e.g., MPEG-DASH implementations)

analysis of syslog messages for finding possible threats or
misbehaviors

Qualifications

We are looking for a graduate student for a two-month-long full-time
internship. Candidates should have good skills in computer
networking, UNIX systems, and programming as well as oral and written
communication skills in English.

For data analysis, skills in machine learning techniques and knowledge
of statistics are also required.

To complete a project in two months, a candidate should have
substantial experiences in the selected research topic.

Host Researchers

Internet Routing

Objectives

The objective of the internship is to provide interns with
opportunities to measure, develop, and enhance Internet routing protocols.

Among the possible topics are

the mining of big data, such as the detection and correlation of
control and data plane events

the development of tools to identify protocol deployment or
routing implementation issues

the study, measurement, and development of routing protocol
security architecture, designs, and mechanisms

the study and evaluation of routing protocol extensions

building a testbed to see that a router correctly performs
RPKI-Based Origin Validation

work on medium scale, O(1000) routers, simulation of BGPsec
deployment

secure measurement of network performance

The intern will receive support and feedback from IIJ Research
Laboratory and a range of external research collaborators along the way.

Qualifications

We are looking for a graduate student in Computer Science or
Electrical Engineering to complete a two month full-time
internship. Candidates should be competent in networking (IPv4,
IPv6, TCP), UNIX systems, and C or python programming. Knowledge
of IP routing protocols (BGP, OSPF, IS-IS) would be a plus. In
addition to the above, candidates should have strong practical and
problem-solving skills, the ability to independently produce high
quality work, and good English oral and written communication
skills.

The intern will receive support and feedback from IIJ Research
Laboratory along the way.

Qualifications

We are looking for at least a masters student in Computer Science to
complete a two month full-time internship. Candidates should be
competent in networking (IPv4, IPv6, TCP), UNIX systems, and C and/or
python programming. Knowledge of IP routing protocols (BGP, OSPF,
IS-IS) is needed for those areas. In addition to the above, candidates
should have strong practical and problem-solving skills, the ability
to independently produce high quality work, the ability to write a
simple paper or at least an essay, and good English oral and written
communication skills.

Host Researchers

Network System Automatic Control

Objectives

The objective of the internship is to provide interns with opportunities to research and develop network system management technologies to implement Service Defined Infrastructure(SvDI). Intern will chose one of following topics:

Automatic management controller for network resource

Network resource database

Automatic location algorithm for defined service

The Interface between Service definition and resource controller

Qualifications

We are looking for a graduate student in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering to complete a two month full-time internship. All candidates should be competent in networking, UNIX system, and C/Java/python programming. Knowledge of network management, server management would be a plus. In addition to the above, candidates should have strong practical and problem-solving skills, the ability to independently produce high quality work, and good Japanese or English oral and written communication skills.

Host Researcher

Cloud Infrastructure

Objectives

The main objectives of the internship program is to provide an opportunities to research and develop for the "energy efficient cloud computing platform" that include Datacenter technologies. We will provide a small data center (about 100 servers) that is exclusive use for research and development to do this thema. Interns will chose one of the following research area:

Possible topics are followings,

Datacenter automation software framework

Large scale information gathering and processing system for datacenter control

HCI area research, such as an user interface for datacenter operators to support understanding large amount of information

other related research topics (research proposals are welcome)

Qualifications

We are looking for a graduate student in Computer Science or Electrical Engeneering (or equivalent departments) to complete a two month full-time internship. Candidates should be competent in Unix operating systems (*BSD and/or linux), having the experience of the userland programming development on them. (The programming language is not restricted: but python, ruby, C and javascript expert is very welcome). System programing experience (kernel programming), and knowledge of cloud system and datacenter system (openstack etc) would be a plus. In addition to the above, candidates should have strong practical and problem-solving skills, and communication skills.

Host Researcher

Library Operating System

With the name of specialization, various academic and
open source projects invented different shape of network stacks
and operating systems. While the specializations avoiding
generalization tax solve specific problems of network
stack, those are often coupled with the downgraded features due to
the specializations, which are hard to recover because the feature
richness usually comes with the incremental growth of operating
systems.

As a result, there are still serious problems of conventional
network stack and library operating systems (or userspace network
stacks):

The primary goal of this project is 1) to alleviate the current
issue of network stacks, and 2) to retain the feature-richness of
the current operating systems by morphing a monolithic kernel into
an anykernel implementation (a.k.a. library operating system).
The concept of library operating system is not new but it is
emerging to address current issues on operating system and network
stack.

The objective of this project is to design and develop an
implementation of library operating system, Linux Kernel Library
(or LKL), to solve aforementioned issues of current operating
system.

Possible topics (but not limited to) are:

supporting general applications with feature-rich network stack

benchmark studies with the implemented software to understand
the bottlenecks (incl. comparison with alternatives)

develop LKL as a base of Unikernel with the particular application runtime

Qualifications

We are looking for graduate students who have the following
knowledge and skills.

Host Researcher

Messages from Alumni

Anant Shah (Year 2016)

I am very thankful to have received the opportunity to visit
IIJ-II for the summer internship in 2016. Working side-by-side
with very talented researchers on a challenging topic gave me the
chance to grow as a researcher and get valuable feedback on my
work.

I was graciously offered to pick a topic that helps my PhD
thesis. I closely worked with Romain Fontugne and Randy Bush on
detecting internet outages using a light-weight algorithm on the
RIPE Atlas data. Emile Aben from RIPE NCC and Cristel Pelsser from
the University of Strasbourg were also actively involved. I
learned a lot from all of them, they were very approachable and
encouraged discussion on various ideas or questions I had. I felt
like a part of the team in just 2 months and I can't wait to
collaborate on more work with them.

I also had a great time interacting with other researchers in the
lab. We had a few social activities organized and I loved talking
to everyone about them, their research and their life in
Japan. Big thanks to Kenjiro Cho and Keiichi Shima, who on several
occasions joined us for lunch and helped understand the menu,
Japanese traditional food, and customs. My experience in Japan
would not have been so delightful without the help of Naoko
Kitamura. She took care of arranging flights, providing detailed
directions on how to get to the accommodation, bank accounts, and
numerous other small details that needed translation. In some
ways, she is the lab's go-to person for all logistics and help.

Tokyo is a beautiful city and a very vibrant community. There is
something new to do every day and something new to learn about
Japanese culture every day. The people of Tokyo are very polite
and helpful. While speaking Japanese is an added advantage, it is
not necessary to get around and experience the city.

I highly recommend joining the internship and taking advantage of
this wonderful opportunity.

Stefano Tracà (Year 2016)

The internship at IIJ-II is one of the best summer experiences you
can hope for.

The laboratory is a synergetic environment where everyone brings
their knowledge and is ready to learn from other brilliant
international researchers. I worked closely with Keiichi Shima on
detecting anomalies in large volumes of network-generated system
log messages. Interns are supervised and helped in their research
by their mentor, but are in charge of their project.

Moving to Japan for two months was much easier than
expected. IIJ-II was impeccable in providing all the required
paperwork for the Visa application, a very comfortable
accommodation close to the workplace and some of the most exciting
neighborhoods of Tokyo, flights, and a lot of suggestions for
weekend activities, restaurants, and wonderful sightseeing. The
Innovation Institute also organizes every year a very fun retreat
to share feedback on all the projects and enjoy amazing food and
hot springs.

I think the internship has been an excellent opportunity to grow
intellectually, make new friends, and explore an unforgettable
city. I recommend young researchers to join the program!

Argyrios Tasiopoulos (Year 2016)

The internship at IIJ-II was an amazing experience in so many
ways. During the program, I worked on the QoS improvement of
Shared Media Services under the guidance of Dr. Ray Atarashi.

I appreciate the opportunity that I had to invest my time
creatively, working in an interesting project, surrounded by
friendly and kind people who were always there to offer their
advise both in academic and social matters.

On the practical aspects of my trip, IIJ-II had arranged all the
details including my flight tickets and accommodation, making sure
that I would have a pleasant stay in Tokyo. Thanks to this
hospitality I was able to get the most out of my journey,
experiencing the rich Japanese culture and tradition while
exploring Tokyo.

I believe that the internship at IIJ-II is the best choice I could
have made and I would totally recommend the program to ambitious
research-oriented students; who would like to spent their summer
in a creative environment next to world-class researchers.

Julien Gamba (Year 2016)

In 2016 I was part of the IIJ Innovation Institute summer
internship program. I worked on Internet routing with Randy Bush
and Romain Fontugne, studying the fragmentation of the BGP routing
table. It was an amazing experience on many levels. I had the
opportunity to work with very good researchers, to talk about my
work with researchers from very different fields and to discover
the Japanese culture. I knew close to nothing about Japan so every
day brought its share of discoveries.

Everything is arranged for you before you enter Japan (visa,
accommodation, bank account, etc...) so you do not have to worry
about anything even if you do not speak a word of Japanese. Many
thanks to Naoko Kitamura for having taken care of everything for
us interns!

Overall I am really happy to have been part of this program, and
will definitely do it again if I can.

Past Members

Year 2016

Anant Shah, Colorado State University, U.S.A.

Argrios Tasiopoulos, University College London, United Kingdom

Julien Gamba, University of Strasbourg, France

Răzvan Certezeanu, Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Stefano Tracà, Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, U.S.A.

Year 2015

Alessandro Puccetti, University of Pisa, Italy

Daniel Gröber, Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria

Kenichi Takagiwa, Keio University, Japan

Lachlan Kang, The University of Adelaide, Australia

Mijung Kim, Stony Brook, Korea

Minoru Kanatsu, Osaka University, Japan

Year 2014

Daniele Iamartino, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Gaëtan Briot, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Tao Peng, University of Trento, Italy

Thomas Holterbach, University of Strasbourg, France

Year 2013

David Hauweele, Université de Mons, Belgium

Yaser Jararweh, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan

Hyoyoung Lim, Nagoya University, Japan

Doudou Fall, Nara Institute Science and Technology, Japan

Year 2012

Andra Lutu, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain

David Lebrun, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Hirokazu Hasegawa, Nagoya University, Japan

Julien Beaudaux, University of Strasbourg, France

Nam Dang, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Zachary Bischof, Northwestern University, U.S.A.

Frequently Asked Questions

General information

When will the application be open?

The summer internship application will be open at the beginning of December every year.

How long is the summer internship program?

The program is for 2 months.

What are the start and end dates for the program?

Interns are able to select either from July 1st to August 31st or
August 1st to September 30th. However, it is negotiable depending on
the schedule of your university.

Can I extend the internship program?

No, this summer internship program is only for 2 months.

Visa

Do I need to obtain a visa?

Yes, you will obtain a 3 month Designated Activities visa.

What are the required documents for obtaining visa?

Our admin staff will contact with you regarding the documents
once the duration of your program is fixed.

What are the procedures for obtaining the visa?

IIJ-II will submit the required documents to Tokyo Immigration
Office to obtain a certificate of eligibility for your visa.

When the certificate is issued, we will post it to you. After you
receive the certificate, please go to the Japanese Embassy or
consulate in your country to obtain the visa with your passport as
soon as possible.

How long will it take the certificate of eligibility to be issued?

It will usually take about 1.5 to 2 months.

Accommodation

Where can I stay during the internship?

IIJ-II will provide a furnished apartment near the office for those
who come from far places. Interns usually stay near Kanda Station
in Tokyo. Please note that the accommodation is subject to change
depending on the availability.

When can I get the detailed information regarding the accommodation?

IIJ-II will inform you of the details about 3 weeks before your
arrival.

Flight ticket

Will IIJ-II pay for my flight?

Yes.

When can I get the details of my flight?

IIJ-II will arrange the flight ticket after the certificate of
eligibility is issued.

I would like to fly from France and fly back to US. Could IIJ-II provide the whole flight tickets?

No, we will provide a round trip ticket only.

Other information staying in Japan

Will travel insurance be provided by IIJ-II?

No, IIJ-II will not provide the insurance. You must make your own
arrangements to join a travel insurance plan before you leave for
Japan. We recommend that you have travel insurance which also covers
flight delays, lost baggage etc.

How can I receive my salary? Do you transfer to my overseas account?

You will open a Japanese bank account for your salary payment on your
first working day. We will not transfer your salary to your overseas
account.

When is the pay day?

The pay day is on 25th every month, so you will need some money
for day to day expenses until this date.

Can I do some sightseeing after the internship is finished?

The visa is only for the internship, not sightseeing, therefore we
would not recommend that you could stay longer after the program is
finished. In case of extending your stay, the accommodation will not
be provided by IIJ-II.

I have some additional questions about Summer Internship Program. Who can I contact?